Homemade Chicken Feed 200 lbs @ $0.39 per Pound

[lazy gardener]

What he said! And you did not waste your money. You have some very nice feed there. What you could do, if you wanted to work out the numbers, using an agricultural chart to up the protein with fish meal. Some folks have used cat fish or koi pellets. Or you could simply buy a nice bag of higher protein feed, and use your mix as scratch. You can still ferment your mix if you want to. You might find someone on your state thread who does mix their own, and get enough Nutri-balancer and aragonite to balance it out.

We're all learning. Feeding your birds is one of the biggest learning curves. I can't tell you how many threads talk about "my birds are dying or getting sick" only to further on disclose that the birds are eating nothing but stale white bread and perhaps scratch. Or their feed is old. Sounds like where you live, you never run into old feed. I can't tell you how often I've walked out of the feed store without buying b/c the feed on the shelves is 2 - 3 months old.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

You need a good 40 lbs of fish meal to bring up the mix to around 22% protein. Any measure of nutrient should be done by weight and if researching nutrition the form the ingredient is in matters. Dried peas opposed to boiled peas really changes content by weight as it's filled with water weight and things of that nature.

It's all doable with algebra. You've got 200 lbs at 13% protein and want to add X amount of 65% protein fish meal to end up at 22%.

200(13) + X (65) = (200+X) 22

2600 + 65X = 4400 + 22X

43X = 1800

X= 42 Lbs Fish meal. Call it 40 and your mix is still over 20% no problem. Of course then your near 250 lbs of feed and need a lot of chickens to use that up. Probably better off using it as a scratch grain. Put in 5 gallon buckets with sealed lids or something for storage in cool place and you've scratch grain to last a long time.

 

[chickens really]

Google Rochester Hatchery......Look at their 2017 catalogue inside you will find a recipe for Homemade feed for MEAT BIRDS......


Good luck....


Cheers!

 

[Howard E]

So you were spending $20 for each 50# bag?

I have not priced feed for meat birds, but in addition to selling Purina bagged feed for $16 to $17 per 50# bag, our local feed store also has it's own mill. They will make me a layer ration using their corn and bean meal, and a commercial supplement mix (from Purina), in 500# batches and that sells for about $100 or $10 per 50# bag.

You might ask if they do something similar vs. trying to formulate your own.

 

[eldonrgv]

I went to that site and did not find the charts you got your % from.  But, those numbers are seriously different than any numbers I've seen.  I went to an animal feed site, and found the following chart:  

Table 1. Average Nutrient Composition of Grains, Dry Matter Basis.
Grain	Crude Protein %	Starch %	DE[SUP]a [/SUP]Mcal/kg	ADF[SUP]b[/SUP] %	Ruminal Starch Digestion % Total Starch[SUP]c[/SUP]
Corn	10.3	75.7	4.1	3	65
Barley	12.7	64.3	3.7	7	87
Wheat	15.9	70.3	3.9	8	89
Rye	11.8	65.0	3.7	8	90
Triticale	15.7	67.0	3.7	8	90
Oats	11.6	58.1	3.4	16	92

This is much more in line with what the common grains you are using have.  Check out this site:  

http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/beef11489

Then, there's this site:   http://www.eolss.net/sample-chapters/c10/e5-02-02.pdf    Check out the legume chart there.

Its not a chart. There's a search window, enter grain and search. It'll then ask how many servings. 4 servings = 1 lb press calculate and it'll give you all nutritional facts.

 

[eldonrgv]

Those numbers don't match any numbers common to the animal feed industry.  It's possible that they are showing so high b/c they are based on 4 human servings.  There fore, for instance, 1# of oats would be 4 servings, and make up 56% of the protein needs of the human daily diet.  I'm not sure.  But, I'm thinking you should use charts based on animal feed to avoid any confusion.

Thanks, but wouldn't the nutrition value of a pound of oats remain the same even if a chicken ate it? Like they say "A ton of cotton weighs the same as a ton of bricks!" If a pound of oats were the daily consumption of a human and is "56% protein" wouldn't that be an overkill of protein on a chicken being way to smaller than a human? I read in a thread also about giving too much protein on chickens would cause kidney issues. This guy was giving too much mealworms and his birds got sick. I'm just asking cuz I got this idea from the website The Praire Homestead http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2016/06/homemade-chicken-feed-recipe.html
Where they use most of my ingredients except for kelp, fish meal, nutri balancer (which is mostly vitamins and minerals), and calcium supplement which I don't have. Just asking around for members input.

 

[eldonrgv]

All I can tell you is that your protein percentages don't make sense. I went to that web site and took a good look. Without doing much research, this recipe on that site looked ok:

• 30% Corn
• 30% Wheat
• 20% Peas
• 10% Oats
• 10% Fish Meal
• 2% Poultry Nutri–Balancer [COLOR=8CAE39](where to buy)

• Free Choice Kelp ([COLOR=8CAE39]where to buy kelp[/COLOR])
• Free Choice Aragonite

[/COLOR]
Note the main difference in this feed compared to yours is the fish meal. Without looking that up, I'm guessing it's about 30% protein. And it's a high quality protein: animal protein. Also, the Poultry Nutri-Balancer would be providing the trace minerals/vitamins that may be lacking in yours. Kelp is also very high in essential minerals and vitamins. Aragonite is also an other product that is usually added to home made animal feeds. While chicken flocks have been living "down on the farm" for hundreds of years, subsisting on free range and the morning bit of scratch or cracked corn, they had access to a whole farm yard of free range delights that the common back yard flock does not have access to.

I don't mix my own because I know I can't get a healthy balance for the price I can buy prepared feed. You can feed your mix to your flock, and they might do ok on it, or they may end up having some health problems show up. I'm merely suggesting that you take an other look at the source of your information. It is not correct IMO.

An other thing you might consider to give them even more of a nutritional boost would be to ferment your feed.

I guess ill look up for the rest of the ingredients when I head to the city cuz herein aint gonna find nothing. All I know is that I have 200 lbs of feed....lol....and the percentages aren't mine its that **** nutrient vale calculator they have on their website. I just entered what I had and the amount and *boom* all data came out giving me that info.....**** Newbie!!!!

 

[lazy gardener]

All I can tell you is that your protein percentages don't make sense. I went to that web site and took a good look. Without doing much research, this recipe on that site looked ok:

• 30% Corn
• 30% Wheat
• 20% Peas
• 10% Oats
• 10% Fish Meal
• 2% Poultry Nutri–Balancer (where to buy)
• Free Choice Kelp (where to buy kelp)
• Free Choice Aragonite

Note the main difference in this feed compared to yours is the fish meal. Without looking that up, I'm guessing it's about 30% protein. And it's a high quality protein: animal protein. Also, the Poultry Nutri-Balancer would be providing the trace minerals/vitamins that may be lacking in yours. Kelp is also very high in essential minerals and vitamins. Aragonite is also an other product that is usually added to home made animal feeds. While chicken flocks have been living "down on the farm" for hundreds of years, subsisting on free range and the morning bit of scratch or cracked corn, they had access to a whole farm yard of free range delights that the common back yard flock does not have access to.

I don't mix my own because I know I can't get a healthy balance for the price I can buy prepared feed. You can feed your mix to your flock, and they might do ok on it, or they may end up having some health problems show up. I'm merely suggesting that you take an other look at the source of your information. It is not correct IMO.

An other thing you might consider to give them even more of a nutritional boost would be to ferment your feed.
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I went back to that WebMD food calculator site, and found your problem. The protein percentages you were quoting in your list of ingredients were based on your calculations of the number of servings you estimated that would be in a pound of the ingredient. For example, when using dry yellow corn, based on 1/4 cup per serving, I'm guessing you entered 4 servings, and came up with 31% protein. But, that is the amount of protein %DV based on an adult human eating 1 full cup of dry yellow corn. THAT IS NOT THE PROTEIN CONTENT OF THE CORN.

 

[eldonrgv]

I too had livestock nutrition, and poultry husbandry classes in college, and there's no way I could balance a ration at home for a better price than Purina can provide!!!  It's tricky, and unless you are feeding hundreds of birds at once (at least!)  it can't be done economically.  Mary

Thanks....I messed up big on this one.

 

[eldonrgv]

Is there a way to delete this thread? Feel such a fool.....lmao.